All posts tagged STEM to STEAM

How to Nurture a Child’s Creativity

“Every child is born an artist. The problems begin once we start to grow up.”

Pablo Picasso

What requires creativity? Art? Music? How about science and math? Does career satisfaction and success require creativity? The research indicates all the above.

But I argue that we should be nurturing our child’s creativity at home because it’s not being taught in school. No, it’s not the budget cut backs in the arts either. That hurts, to be sure, but the issue is that we simply don’t teach “the opportunity to find and bring to life that which motivates [kids] intrinsically.”

Creativity Threatened Specifically in 3rd through 5th Grade

Actually, Lehrer noted, the problems begin in a very specific time frame: the years covering third, fourth, and fifth grade. It’s during this period, he says, that many kids “conclude that they are not creative, and this is in large part because they start to realize that that their drawing is not quite as pretty as they would like, that they can put the brush in the wrong place, that their short stories don’t live up to their expectations—so they become self-conscious and self-aware, and then they shut themselves down.”

Parents’ and teachers’ task, he said, is to help kids learn how to “productively daydream.” Read more…